What is Mutual Admiration from the Asylum Department? Good question. Jaki and Lynne met in a writers critique group and discovered a mutual taste for homicidal humor. We're happy to share our MAADness in the form of newsletters to anyone who sends their snail mail address to murraymade@aol.com.

ISSUE #15 - SPRING-SUMMER 2002

So who's the lady in the hat? It looks suspiciously like Jaqueline Girdner, but Jaki has picked up the nom de plume of Claire Daniels for her new series, debuting in December 2002 with Body of Intuition. Meanwhile, Lynne Murray is out the door and headed for A Ton of Trouble this summer. See below for more information.

GIRDNER CHANGING HATS?

You wouldn't think Jaki could get any wackier -- a hair
change? A sex change? Nope, a name change and a new mystery series with a new protagonist.

In December, Jaqueline Girdner will become Claire Daniels, and she will introduce a new sleuth, Cally Lazar. And what
does Cally Lazar do for a living? She's a medical intuitive.

Jaki's cat, Raoul, comments -- "It was bound to happen.
She's gone straight out into the woo woo stratosphere. I blame it on the catnip. She should have left it to me, I can handle it."

What do medical intuitives do? They heal people by
looking into their energy fields. So how do Cally Lazar's healing gifts get her mired in murder? Let Cally explain it to you herself in an excerpt from Body of Intuition--

I'm an energy worker, and I don't mean for a utilities
company. Some people call me a medical intuitive, but I try to keep the word "medical" out of my own description. It's too close to "legal, " and I'm a recovering attorney. I even go to a twelve-step program to ensure I never practice law again. So, once I quit law, I started doing massage for a living full-time, your basic Swedish/Esalen massage. And
as I was doing massage, I began to see things, auras mostly. And I began to feel the energy flows in the body. Some of the auras seemed wrong to me, some of the energy flows seemed blocked, and it bugged me.

So I started playing around, maybe taking a massive red blob of color around the liver and imagining it transforming into crystalline light, or imagining energy flowing through the arms and out the fingertips where it had been blocked. And my clients started feeling better. It was wonderful, but it was scary too. In fact, it scared me into learning more about what I was doing. I ended up taking as many
classes on alternative healing as I could absorb. And I kept seeing, and feeling, and people kept getting better. -from Body of Intuition, Chapter I (Berkley Prime Crime, Dec. 2002).

Anyway, Cally was used to "seeing things" in the form of energy that she used to help her clients. But she never expected to hear voices. Not until her client's dead husband told her he didn't commit suicide... he was murdered...

Plus--

A Postcard from Kate and Wayne: Those who have
followed the 12 books of Jaki's Kate Jasper series will be glad to hear that CC, Kate's resident housecat, has received a postcard from Kate and Wayne. They just want everyone to know that they are happily honeymooning at last, without the distraction of tripping over dead bodies. CC remarks, "They sent hugs and smooches -- I would have preferred tuna."

MURRAY URGES YOU TO ASK FOR TROUBLE!

Although Murray is most excited to report an option
agreement with Aaron Spelling for a possible Josephine Fuller TV Series, she isn't letting that stop her from stirring up trouble this summer.

The latest Jo Fuller adventure, A Ton of Trouble
(available in July 2002, St. Martin's Minotaur), takes place in the California wine country. On an assignment in San Francisco, Jo gets a note from Wolf Lambert, winery owner and director of X-rated films starring plus-sized women. When she pays him a visit, Jo finds more than
she bargained for when a dead body turns up in a wine barrel. Searching for the killer entangles Josephine in a dispute with a rabid, shotgun-carrying activist, an old family feud between wineries, and the bizarre world of adult film makers.

Starting in midsummer, Murray will be shamelessly
promoting trouble -- actually A Ton of Trouble. She has been waiting to use this title for seven years, and she is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to sign copies and otherwise attempt to get others into Trouble at the locations, times and dates below.

Jaki has a new cat, Raoul, who has inspired her to speculate what kind of songs cats would like to see in the top ten -- the strong nostalgia content shows that the cats were influenced by the
MAADwomen's baby boomer music tastes.

Folk

1. If I Had a Can Opener (I'd open tuna. I'd open up salmon. I'd empty out all the cans in all the food bowls -- aaaaall over this land.)

2. I Shall Overcome

3. He's Got the Whole World in His Paws

4. This Yard is My Land, That Yard is Your Land

Broadway Show Tunes

5. Catalot (Although it gives a purrrson paws, but in Catalot, those were the legal laws)